Baker Library at Harvard Business School.
Just 10 weeks before the first application deadline on September 4, Harvard Business School today released a newly revised application for MBA candidates, which also includes three new short essays.
New prompt?
Business-oriented essaysReflect on how your experience has influenced your career choices and aspirations, and how it will impact the business, organization, or community you plan to serve (300 words or less).
Leadership Focused Essays: What experiences have shaped you as a person, how do you serve others, and what kind of leader do you want to be? (250 words or less)
Growth Mindset EssayCuriosity comes in many forms. Please give us an example of how you have exercised your curiosity and how it has influenced your personal growth (250 words or less).
Harvard Business School’s new essays reviewed by new MBA admissions director
The admissions page on the Harvard Business School website must have been refreshing all morning as thousands of applicants and admissions consultants eagerly waited to get a glimpse of the new essays. The essay topics for Harvard Business School’s Class of 2027 were posted at 10:30 a.m. along with the opening of online applications for the 2024-2025 academic year.
This year’s changes were implemented by Rupal Gadhia, who joined the school last October as managing director of admissions and scholarships. Gadhia, who earned his MBA from Harvard in 2004, had previously served as global marketing director for SharkNinja Robots, but came to the school with no prior admissions experience.
Explaining the changes in a blog post, Gadhia said, “We’ve revamped the criteria by which we evaluate applicants. We’re looking for applicants who are business-minded, leadership-focused, and growth-oriented. This is your opportunity to discuss meaningful or formative experiences that are important to you that you may not have had a chance to fully explore in other parts of your application. Be authentic and true to yourself.”
The new essay topics were announced nearly two months after applicants to the school’s MBA program typically find out what’s expected of them. Some admissions consultants said the late announcement of the topics, and the nearly month-long delay in announcing the application deadline, was “highly insensitive” to candidates who have less time than usual to prepare before the Sept. 4 first-round deadline.
Shortened deadlines for first round applicants
This is especially evident since many of the applicants who are accepted to Harvard Business School have highly demanding jobs that take up most of their time. Many applicants draft their essays multiple times to make them as close to perfect as possible. MBA admissions consultants expect a lot of last-minute work this year to help prepare applicants to Harvard and other top business schools.
The new application will still offer a post-interview reflection for applicants who are invited for a 30-minute admissions interview, and within 24 hours of their interview, applicants will be required to submit a written reflection through the school’s online application system.
Early reactions to the change suggest mixed reviews are to be expected. “It’s a strange, uninspiring set of questions,” says Sandy Kreisberg, an MBA admissions consultant and founder of HBSGuru.com, which delves into the inner workings of Harvard’s admissions process. “Frankly, I don’t see how this is any different than asking, what else do we want to know about you?” he added, referring to one essay question from last year.
Last year, 1,076 of the 8,264 people who applied to Harvard Business School were accepted, giving it an acceptance rate of 13.2 percent. This makes it the second most selective MBA program in the nation, behind Stanford Business School, which had an acceptance rate of 8.4 percent. Harvard saw a 15.4 percent drop in MBA applications from 9,773 the previous year.
Joint degree applicants from Harvard Medical School, Harvard Dental School, Harvard Graduate School of Letters, Harvard Law School, and Harvard Kennedy School must submit an additional essay (maximum 400 words) about how they expect their joint degree experience will benefit them on a professional and personal level.
The biggest change in Harvard Business School essays in nearly a decade
Harvard Paulson School of Engineering and Applied Sciences joint degree applicants are required to submit an additional essay. The MS/MBA Engineering Science program has a focus on entrepreneurship, design, and innovation. Please explain your past experience in these areas and why you would like to study in the program with this focus. (Recommended length: 500 words). Applicants may also respond to an optional essay.
Either way, this is the biggest change to the Harvard Business School application in a decade. The last time Harvard Business School made a big change by moving to an essay requirement was in 2016. The change to one unlimited essay and a post-interview reflection was made by then-head of admissions Dee Leopold.
When Leopold applied to Harvard as an MBA candidate in 1978, she had to write eight essays. During her years as managing director of admissions, she first reduced the essays to four, then to one and made them optional, and finally to a final one, a post-interview reflection, and said that applying to Harvard should not be an essay contest.
Don’t Miss: 2024-2024 MBA Application Deadlines or Harvard Business School Updates MBA Essays
